About Never Hug a Nun
- Paperback: 182 pages
- Publisher: Blank Slate Press (December 8, 2012)
AUTHOR’S MISSPENT BOYHOOD INSPIRES COMIC NOVEL ABOUT GROWING UP IN WEBSTER GROVES
From first crushes and cafeteria lines, hidden forts and secret passwords, learning the Cub Scout oath and robbing the Ben Franklin, to hanging out on the train tracks, running from the police, enduring stuffy classrooms and, of course, dodging projectile vomit, Never Hug a Nun laces the reader into the Keds of young Patrick Cantwell—a boy who really wants to be good, but who, like his hero The Wolfman, always seems to fall short.
Set in Webster Groves in 1966, the story takes readers on a laughing, head-shaking, I-remember-doing-that-stuff ride through the rigors of practicing good penmanship, the rites of spring kickball, unsupervised summer days filled with Velvet Freeze daydreams of starting a band at least as good as The Beatles, and, finally, to those dying seconds when a boy reaches out bravely to hold the 220-volt live wire of a girl’s hand.
Read an excerpt of Never Hug a Nun HERE.
“Kevin remembers what it was like to be a kid. This is fun stuff.”–Bill McClellan (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
“Kevin Killeen’s utterly winning novel gives us the human comedy in full measure. Blessed with a genuine comic gift, Killeen manages to write with both hilarity and humanity. The book is a buoyant delight from beginning to end.” – David Carkeet, author of The Full Catastrophe
About Kevin Killeen
A reporter with KMOX radio since 1995, Kevin Killeen has confused listeners for the past ten years with his regular morning feature, A Whole ‘nother Story. Killeen has also authored the KMOX Holiday Radio Show, an original comic play with a holiday theme, for the past 15 years or so. In Never Hug a Nun, Killeen attempts to escape his declining faculties, by casting his mind back to the days of his youth when he spent long summer days on the train tracks or hanging out at the Velvet Freeze and wishing he were a teenager.
A 1982 graduate of UMSL, Killeen studied fiction writing under comic novelist David Carkeet who corrupted him with thoughts of getting published someday. Married with four children, Killeen enjoys asking his kids — again — to please, pick up their shoes, moving the sprinkler around a dying lawn, and going to garage sales on Saturday with his mother.
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Kevin Killeen’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, December 3rd: Speaking of Books
Thursday, December 6th: Patricia’s Wisdom
Friday, December 7th: WV Stitcher
Sunday, December 9th: Simply Stacie
Monday, December 10th: Bookchickdi
Wednesday, December 12th: Luxury Reading
Thursday, December 13th: She Treads Softly
Monday, December 17th: Reading Between the Lines
Wednesday, December 19th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Thursday, December 20th: Day by Day in Our World
Monday, December 24th: BookNAround
Monday, December 31st: Fiction Addict
Wednesday, January 2nd: Reviews by Molly